Clock Without Hands

by Carson McCullers

  "This is the hour for immortal poetry. My amanuensis reads to me."

  "Your what?" Malone asked sharply, as the word suggested to him Eurotone and bed-wetting.

  "My secretary here. Sherman Pew. He is an excellent reader, and the reading hour is one of the pleasantest portions of the day. Today we're reading Longfellow. Read on, MacDuff," the Judge said jovially.

  "What?"

  "I was just paraphrasing Shakespeare, so to say."

  "Shakespeare?" Sherman felt out of his element, left out and cloddish. He hated Mr. Malone for coming in at the poetry hour. Why wasn't that old sourpuss at the drugstore where he belonged?

  "Go back to:

  By the shore of Gitche Gumee,

  By the shining Big-Sea-Water,

  At the doorway of his wigwam..."

  The Judge's eyes were closed and his head gently wagged with the rhythm. "Proceed, Sherman."

  "I don't want to," said Sherman sullenly. Why should he make a monkey of himself in front of that fuss-body Mr. Malone? He'd be damned if he would.

  The Judge felt something amiable was going amiss. "Well, just recite, 'I shot an arrow into the air.'"

  "I don't feel like it, sir."

  Malone watched and listened to the scene, his sack of greens still in his lap.

  The Judge, feeling that something very amiable was going amiss, and craving to finish the lovely poem, continued himself:

  "Daughter of the moon, Nakomis

  Dark behind it rose the forest

  Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees

  Bright before it beat the water

  Beat the clear and sunny water

  Beat the shining big sea water...

  My eyes are tired in this darkened room. Can't you take over, Sherman?"

  "No, sir."

  "Ewa yea, my little owlet

  Who is this that lights the wigwam

  With his great eyes lights the wigwam...

  Oh the tenderness, the rhythm and tenderness of this. Why can't you feel it, Sherman? You always read immortal poetry so beautifully."

  Sherman scrooched up his behind and did not comment.

  Malone, still with the sack of greens in his lap, felt the tension in the room. It was apparent that this sort of thing went on every day. He wondered who was crazy. The old Judge? The nigger with the blue eyes? Himself? Longfellow? He said with careful tact, "I brought you a mess of turnip greens from my garden, and a mess of collards."

  With arrogant rudeness Sherman said, "He can't eat them."

  The Judge's voice was dismayed. "Why, Sherman," he said pleadingly, "I adore turnip greens and collards."

  "It's not on the diet," Sherman insisted. "They belong to be cooked with side meat, streak of lean and streak of fat. And that's not on the diet."

  "How about just a slither of the lean portion of streak of lean, streak of fat?"

  Sherman was still mad that Mr. Malone had come in at the reading hour which he loved, and the sourpuss old drugstore man had looked at the two of them like they were loony and spoiled the immortal poetry hour. However, he had not read Hiawatha aloud. He had not made himself a monkey; he had left that to the old Judge who did not seem to care if people thought he had just escaped from Milledgeville or not.

  Malone said soothingly, "Yankees eat greens with butter or vinegar."

  "While I'm certainly no Yankee, I'll try the greens with vinegar. On our honeymoon in New Orleans I ate snails. One snail," the old Judge added.

  From the parlor, there was the sound of the piano. Jester was playing the "Lindenbaum." Sherman was furious because he played it so well.

  "I eat snails all the time. Picked up the habit when I was in France."

  "I didn't know you were ever in France," Malone said.

  "Why certainly. I had a brief stint in the service." Zippo Mullins had been in the service, and that was the actual truth, and had told Sherman many stories, most of which Sherman took with a grain of salt.

  "J.T., I'm sure you need some refreshment after your broiling walk. How about some gin and quinine water?"

  "That would be most acceptable, sir."

  "Sherman, will you make Mr. Malone and me some gin and quinine water?"

  "Quinine, Judge?" His voice was incredulous, for even if that old Mr. Malone was a drugstore man, he surely wouldn't like bitter quinine on his day off.

  The Judge said in a bossy voice, as if to a servant, "It's in the refrigerator. On the bottle it says 'tonic.'"

  Sherman wondered why he had not said so at first. Tonic water was not the same as quinine. He knew because he had tasted little drinks ever since he had been with the Judge.

  "Put plenty of ice in it," the Judge said.

  Sherman was fit to be tied, not only because the reading hour was spoiled but because he had been ordered around like a servant. He hurried in to take it out on Jester. "Is that 'Rockabye Baby' you're playing?"

  "No, it is 'Lindenbaum'; I borrowed it from you."

  "Well, it is the utter end in German lieder."

  Jester, who had been playing with tears of emotion in his eyes, stopped playing, to Sherman's content because he had been playing much too well, especially for a sight-reading job.

  Sherman went to the kitchen and fixed the drinks with very little ice. Who was he to be ordered around? And how was it that that puny-faced Jester could play genuine German lieder so well, especially on a sight-reading job?

  He had done everything for the old Judge. The afternoon when Grown Boy died, he had cooked supper himself, waiting on the table; however, he would not eat the supper he had cooked. He would not eat the supper, even at the library table. He had found a cook for them. He had found Cinderella Mullins to pinch-hit for them while that Verily was away.

  Meanwhile, the Judge was telling his friend Malone, "That boy is a veritable treasure, a jewel. Writes letters for me, reads for me, let alone giving me the injections and making me toe the line on my diet."

  Malone's skepticism showed on his face. "How did you happen to run across this paragon?"

  "I didn't run across him. He has affected my very life since before he was born."

  Malone was hesitant even to conjecture about this mysterious remark. Could it be that the snooty blue-eyed nigger was the Judge's natural son? Improbable as it seemed, it could be possible. "But wasn't he found in a pew at one of the colored churches?"

  "He was."

  "But how does this affect your very life?"

  "Not only my very life but my life's blood—my own son."

  Malone tried to think of Johnny having a sexual relation with a colored girl. The fair-haired, decent Johnny Clane with whom he had many times gone hunting at Sereno. It was highly improbable but again not impossible.

  The Judge seemed to read his puzzled mind. With his good hand he gripped his stick until the hand turned purple. "If you think for one single moment that my Johnny ever slept with nigger wenches or such immoral doings..." The Judge could not finish for rage.

  "I never supposed any such thing," Malone said soothingly. "You just put it so mysteriously."

  "It is a mystery, if ever there was one. But it's such a bad business that even a garrulous old man like myself can hardly discuss it."

  Yet Malone knew he wanted to discuss it further, but at that moment Sherman Pew banged two glasses on the library table. When Sherman bolted out of the room, the Judge continued: "However, now that boy is a golden skein in my old age. Writes my letters with the calligraphy of an angel, gives me my injections and makes me toe the line on the diet. Reads to me in the afternoon."

  Malone did not point out that the boy had refused to read that afternoon, so that the old Judge himself had had to finish Longfellow.

  "Sherman reads Dickens with such pathos. Sometimes I cry and cry."

  "Does that boy ever cry?"

  "No, but often he smiles at the humorous places."

  Malone, puzzled, waited for the Judge to say something more pertinent about the mystery he had intima
ted, but he only said, "Well it only goes to show again that 'out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.'"

  "Why, what's the matter, sir? Were you in danger?"

  "Not exactly in danger ... that's just the expression of the Bard. But since my dear wife's death I've been so much alone."

  Malone was not only puzzled about the Judge, but suddenly worried. "Alone, sir? You have your grandson, and you're the most revered citizen in all Milan."

  "You can be the most revered citizen in town, or in all the state, and still feel alone. And be alone, by God!"

  "But your grandson who is the apple of your eye?"

  "It's the nature of young boys to be selfish. I know boys through and through. The only thing that's the matter with Jester is ... adolescence. I have a profound knowledge of all boys and it all comes down to ... selfish, selfish, selfish."

  Malone was pleased to hear Jester criticized, but very properly he said nothing. He only asked, "How long have you had the colored boy?"

  "About two months."

  "That's a short time for him to be so well established in the household ... so cozily settled, one might say."

  "Sherman is cozy, thank God. Although he's an adolescent like my grandson, we have a quite different relationship."

  Malone was thankful to hear this, but again very properly said nothing. Knowing the capriciousness of the Judge, his fits of instant delight and instant disappointment, he wondered how long this situation would last.

  "A veritable jewel," the Judge was saying enthusiastically. "A treasure."

  Meanwhile, "the veritable jewel" was reading a movie magazine and drinking gin and tonic with loads of ice. He was alone in the kitchen as that old Verily was cleaning upstairs. Although he was replete with the comforts of taste and imagination ... it was a very good article about one of his favorite movie stars ... he was very, very mad. Not only had his special hour of the day been spoiled by the fusspot Mr. Malone, he had lived for three months in suspense, suspense that little by little grew into anxiety. Why hadn't Madame Anderson replied to his letter? If it had been wrongly addressed, it could have been forwarded, for his mother was too famous to miss. When Jester's dog, Tige, walked into the room, Sherman kicked him.

  Verily came down from upstairs and looked at Sherman reading the magazine, drinking the gin and tonic. She was going to comment about him but the look of the fierce eyes in the dark face silenced her. She only said, "In my day I never sat around reading books and drinking liquor."

  Sherman said, "You were probably born a slave, old woman."

  "Slave I was not, my grandfather was."

  "They probably put you on the block in this very town."

  Verily began to wash the dishes, turning on the water spigot very loud. Then she said, "If I knew who your mother was I would tell her to switch you to a frazzle."

  Sherman went back into the parlor to rile Jester for a while, having nothing else to do. Jester was playing again, and he wished he knew what the name of the music was. Suppose he said something bad about the composer and it was the wrong composer. Was it Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert? Because he did not know he could not trust himself to be insulting and that made him more furious. Suppose he said, "That's terrible Beethoven you're playing," and Jester said, "It's not Beethoven, it's Chopin." Sherman, out of pocket, did not know what to do. Then he heard the front door open and close and knew that that busybody, Mr. Malone, had gone. Having embarrassed himself, he went in, meek as Moses, to the Judge. On his own accord he resumed Longfellow, starting with:

  "I shot an arrow into the air."

  Malone had never felt the heat so much as he had this summer. As he walked he felt the blazing sky, the sun, weigh down his shoulders. An ordinary, practical man who seldom daydreamed, he was daydreaming now that in the autumn he was going to a northern country, to Vermont or Maine where again he would see snow. He was going alone without Mrs. Malone. He would ask Mr. Harris to take over the pharmacy and he would stay there for two weeks, or who knows, two months, alone and at peace. He saw in his mind's eye the polar enchantment of snow and felt the cool of it. He would stay in a hotel by himself, which he had never done before, or would it be a ski resort? As he thought of snow he felt a freedom, and a guilt gnawed him as he walked, shoulders bent, under the terrible heat of the day. Once, and only once, he had had the guilt of freedom. Twelve years ago he had sent his wife and the small Ellen to Tallulah Falls for a cool summer vacation, and while they were gone Malone chanced to meet Malone's sin. At first he did not think it was a sin at all. It was just a young lady he met at the drugstore. She had come in with a cinder in her eye and very carefully he had removed the cinder with his clean linen handkerchief. He remembered her trembling body and the tears in her black eyes as he held her head to remove the cinder. She left and that night he thought of her, but that seemed to be the end. But it happened they met the next day when he was paying the dry goods bill. She was a clerk in the office. She had said, "You were so sweet to me yesterday. I wonder what I could do for you now?" He said, "Why, why don't you go to lunch with me tomorrow?" and she had accepted, a little slip of a young thing, working in the dry goods store. They had lunch in the Cricket Tea Room, the most respectable place in town. He talked to her about his family and he never dreamed it would come to anything else. But it did, and at the end of two weeks he had sinned and the awful thing was, he was glad. Singing as he shaved and putting on his finest garments every day. They went to the picture show in town, and he even took her to Atlanta on the bus and took her to the cyclorama. They went to the Henry Grady Hotel for dinner and she ordered caviar. He was strangely happy in this transgression, although he knew it was soon to end. It ended in September when his wife and child came back to town, and Lola was very understanding. Maybe a thing like that had happened to her once before. After fifteen years he still dreamed of her although he had changed dry goods stores and never saw her. When he learned that she had married he was sad, but in another portion of his soul, relieved.

  Thinking of freedom was like thinking of snow. Surely, in the autumn of that year, he would have Mr. Harris take over the pharmacy and he would take a vacation. He would know again the secret stealth of snow and feel the blessed cold. So Malone walked wearily to his own home.

  "When you have a vacation like this, Hon, I don't think it's a real vacation just to trudge around town, not in this heat."

  "I wasn't thinking of the heat, although this town in summer is hot as the hinges of hell."

  "Well, Ellen's been trying herself."

  "What do you mean?" Malone said alarmed.

  "Just trying herself, and crying, crying all afternoon in her bedroom."

  Quickly Malone went up to Ellen's bedroom and Mrs. Malone followed. Ellen was in the bed in her pretty little blue and pink girl's room, sobbing. Malone could not bear to see Ellen cry, for she was his heart. A little tremor came over his tired body. "Baby, baby, what is it?"

  Ellen turned her face to him, "Oh, Daddy, I'm so much in love."

  "Well, why does that make my heart-child cry?"

  "Because he doesn't even know I'm on the earth. We pass on the street and everywhere and he just waves in a casual way and goes on."

  Mrs. Malone said, "That's all right, darling, one of these days when you are older you will meet Mr. Right and all will end well."

  Ellen sobbed more vehemently and Malone hated his wife for it was the silliest thing a mother could say. "Baby, baby, who is it?"

  "Jester. I'm so much in love with Jester."

  "Jester Clane!" Malone thundered.

  "Yes, Jester. He is so handsome."

  "Darling, love," Malone said, "Jester Clane is not worth one inch of your little finger." As Ellen still sobbed, he regretted that he had toted the turnip greens to the old Judge, although the old Judge was innocent of all this. Trying so much to make amends, he said, "And after all, heart-child, this is only puppy love, thank goodness." But as he said these words he knew they were just as sill
y and comfortless as Mrs. Malone's were. "Darling, in the cool of the afternoon, why don't we go to the pharmacy and pick up a quart of that ripple-fudge ice cream for supper." Ellen cried for a while, but later in the afternoon, which was not cool, they went in the family car to the pharmacy and picked up some ripple-fudge ice cream.

  7

  J. T. MALONE was not the only one who was worried about the Judge those months; Jester had begun to be concerned about his grandfather. Selfish, selfish, selfish as he was, with a hundred problems of his own, he still worried about his grandfather. The Judge's wild enthusiasm for his "amanuensis" just carried him away. It was Sherman this, Sherman that, all day long. His grandfather dictated letters in the morning, then at noon they had a drink together. Then when he and his grandfather had their dinner in the dining room, Sherman made himself a "slight sandwich" and ate it in the library. He had told the Judge that he wanted to think over the morning's correspondence, that he didn't want to be distracted by conversations with Verily in the kitchen, and that a heavy noon dinner was bad for his work and concentration.

  The Judge had agreed with this arrangement, pleased that his correspondence was pondered so seriously, pleased as pie about everything these days. He had always spoiled servants, giving them costly, but often very peculiar, gifts for Christmas and birthdays. (A fancy dress nowhere near the right size or a hat nobody would be caught dead in or brand new shoes that did not fit.) Although most of the servants had been female churchgoers who never drank, a few had been in a different category. Yet whether they were teetotalers or the drinking kind, the Judge never checked his liquor shelf in the sideboard. Indeed, Paul, the old gardener (a wizard with roses and border flowers), had died of cirrhosis of the liver after gardening and drinking twenty years at the Judge's.

  Although Verily knew the Judge was a born spoiler, she was amazed at Sherman Pew and the liberties he took in the Judge's household.

  "Won't eat in the kitchen because he says he wants to think about letters," she grumbled. "It's because he's too uppity to eat with me in the kitchen as he belongs. Fixing himself party sandwiches and eating in the liberry, if you please! He's going to ruin the liberry table."